


Just a Grumpy Scot and His (Daughter's) Cat

by everythingmurky



Series: Grumpy Scot and His Cat [1]
Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Family, Fluff, Gen, Some Humor, possible crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-18
Updated: 2017-01-18
Packaged: 2018-09-18 07:00:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9373265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everythingmurky/pseuds/everythingmurky
Summary: In retrospect, agreeing to get a pet to help repair his relationship with his daughter was one of the worst things Hardy could have done.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Weird things happen to me when I'm sleep deprived and working odd hours, which is how I have to explain this idea, as it was born this morning on my "lunch" break (which came before seven o'clock in the morning) when I came home to my house in between stores and had a conversation with my cat.
> 
> It's not out of the ordinary for me at all (I talk to myself, too) but today it struck me it would be hilarious if Hardy went about talking to a cat.
> 
> Of course, then I spent most of the fic explaining how he ended up with said cat, but there you go.
> 
> And much of it is based on my experience with my cat, which I will detail at the end because I don't know that it's that amusing, but it could be insightful. What do I know? I'm sleep deprived and writing about Hardy having a cat.

* * *

Daisy's eyes were wide, with a bright sheen to them, the dangerous sort that mean tears might just accompany this pleading, and if there was one thing he knew he couldn't take, it was his girl in tears. She was a strong one, always had been, making any tears that much harder to see.

“Ah, no,” he said, starting to shake his head immediately. “We've had this conversation before. Half-dozen, half-hundred times, yeah? And the answer's still the same.”

“That's what Mum said,” Daisy told him, and he folded his arms over his chest, aware he was glaring at his own daughter. She should know better than to play this card, and he should know better than to fall for it. Thing was, though, emotional blackmail was good, too good a tactic to be ignored, and hadn't he claimed his purpose was to get his daughter back? Showing up her mum was a good start, wasn't it?

“Don't try and pit me against your mother. That won't work,” Hardy warned her. “Besides, you're fifteen now. What you want to start in on this again for? Shouldn't you be fighting about boys and clothes and language?”

“You giving me ideas now?”

“I bloody well hope not,” Hardy muttered, frowning when he saw her grinning at him. “This isn't funny.”

“Kind of is,” she said, smiling, and he had to fight against smiling himself. The idea of them back to this conversation and him managing to make it worse by falling into stereotypes and showing just how little he knew his daughter anymore.

“Why are you doing this?”

“We can't have one at our place because Mum's boyfriend is allergic,” Daisy said, completely ignoring what he'd said about not using her mother against him. “Please? You know I've wanted one for ages. They're having a free adoption day tomorrow. Won't cost you anything.”

“Oh, aye, not at first, but once it's home there's a never ending cost,” Hardy reminded her. They'd had that discussion, too.

“I know. And I've made the promise to see to it myself before, too,” Daisy said. “It doesn't have to be a big one. Think about it—you won't be alone when I'm not here.”

He gave her a long, hard look. She didn't even squirm. “That's another thing. You're barely here, and if you think, for one minute, that I actually want some _pet_ as company—”

“I want to be with you,” she said. “And I'd want it even more if I could have a cat of my own.”

Hardy bit back on the oath. She had already won. She shouldn't have, but he was a weak sop, and she'd had him from the moment this conversation started. He'd objected because he should, not because he thought he'd actually stand firm. His little girl was talking to him again, and while he knew better than to let her have that much power, she already did.

“Fine. We can take a look.”

She smiled, bouncing a little, and willingly hugged him. In public.

He supposed that was almost worth the trouble of a bloody cat.

* * *

“Hmm,” Daisy said, looking at the poster on the wall. “You think that's true? That cats have personalities like this?”

“If it is, don't see how any of them would be a good fit for us,” Hardy muttered, and she turned back to him, her all grown up phase from the restaurant gone as she went for a pout. “Maybe you should have another think on this, darling.”

“No,” she said, horrified. “Dad, they're about to bring him in. He'll be perfect. I'm sure of it. You think maybe a private investigator type?”

“Not funny,” Hardy said, but she gave him that grin again, and he sighed. He was a hopeless sop, and he wasn't going to stop any time soon. He wouldn't be here if he wasn't a useless sentimental fool.

The door opened, and the woman walked in with her bright scrubs, covered in images of dogs playing and fake cutesy puns. She had a bundle in her arms that was orange and alarmingly fluffy.

“Here he is,” she said, trying to pass the bundle to him.

“Aye, no. Give the wee monster to her. This is her doing. She has to hold it.”

His response made both of them laugh. Daisy now had the thing in her arms, and he knew he was doomed by the way she started cooing at it. Adorable, cute, the same word in about fifty different variants passed her lips, and while he was a bit impressed by the vocabulary, he almost wished he hadn't woken up from the pacemaker surgery.

“He is so sweet, Dad, look at him.”

“I'm not looking at that thing.”

“Angus,” the shelter worker said, and Hardy looked at her. “The cat's name is Angus.”

“Oh, that settles it,” Hardy said. “Not this one. Not Angus. Don't like the name. Angus.”

“You know when you say it it doesn't even sound like Angus. Thought you were Scottish,” she said, shaking her head at him. “Why does it sound like you're calling him Agnes?”

“Why do you sound like your mother?” Hardy countered, and Daisy frowned. He couldn't believe he'd just said that, just like she couldn't. “Daize—”

“We can rename him, right? If we want?” Daisy asked, and the other woman nodded. “Good. Because I think he's perfect. Other than the name. Can't have Dad going around saying Angus like that. That would just be wrong.”

Hardy gave her another look. She grinned at him over her ball of fluff.

* * *

“You like this place, don't you?”

“First mess he makes, he's bloody well out of here,” Hardy said, getting an eye roll from Daisy as she goes about showing him the place. She can't seem to stop making a fuss, and a part of him wants her to shut up, but the rest of him wants to hear every word she says, even if it's directed at an interloper and not him.

“He's not going to make a mess, Dad.”

“Oh, aye?” Hardy can't help asking as the thing touched a can with its tail and then jumped away, spooked, as though it hadn't realized that the appendage was attached. “What do you call that, then?”

She just laughed, amused by the cat's antics. He sighed, trying to resign himself to the fact that this creature was in his home to stay.

At least he had his daughter. For Daisy, he could put up with a damned cat.

* * *

“Daisy,” Hardy said, not sure he'd ever thought he'd find these words coming out of his mouth, “your cat is in the bloody sink again.”

For her part, his daughter just laughed. Hardy didn't understand what was with this creature or why it always had to be sticky its damned nose into everything. Anywhere the cat wasn't supposed to be, that was where he wanted to be. He put his head in cupboards and drawers, went under and behind anything he pleased, sneaking about yet not because it announced its presence constantly.

“I don't want it in my sink.”

“Oh, Dad,” she said. “He's just trying to look out the window.”

“In the loo?”

She giggled. The loo had no windows, save for a small frosted one that let light in but no scenery, and when he found the cat, it was batting at the drain like it was a toy.

To the girl, this sort of behavior was adorable.

To Hardy, it was the sort of thing that made him wonder why he'd become a father in the first place.

* * *

Daisy went back to her mother's, and the thing was bereft without her. Though Hardy fed it and gave it water, even cleaned out that awful box it needed, it followed him bloody everywhere. If he stopped for a bit, it would flop down near him, either curling up or mewing at him, apparently seeking affection, the kind Daisy would give it with a belly rub were she present.

Hardy ignored it. That changed little.

The cat was always under his feet, even when he yelled at it—more than one instance of oi, you trying to kill me, you bloody cat? as his pacemaker went off trying to get his heart under control, several dozen incidents of spilled drinks or lost food, none of which the cat bothered to clean up for him. Hardy had to do that himself.

So much for a pet teaching his daughter responsibility.

* * *

He wasn't sure when it started, when he first spoke to the cat about a case.

He didn't even know he was doing it. He was weeks into a difficult one—not involving kids, mercifully, not sure the heart would take another one of them, even with the pacemaker—and he found himself doing the incessant question thing to the bloody cat.

It sat there, wide eyes blinking while its tail flipped about, and he shrugged, going back to work. He ignored the cat batting at the strings he'd used to create the timeline. He had pieces that didn't fit, ones he was still trying to find a place for.

* * *

Hours later, he sat down next to the cat, gave it a long look, and asked it who the killer was.

According to where it sat its bottom, the brother did it, which made Hardy want to laugh, since he thought the brother was a total wanker.

The cat sat on his lap that night, stayed there the entire time from what Hardy could tell.

Next thing he knew, he was waking up to the cat next to his head, staring at him as he shook off the river and Pippa.

“What do you want?” he asked, and the cat just rolled over, looking for him to scratch its belly.

Hardy didn't.

He almost did, but he didn't.

* * *

Three days later, Hardy arrested the brother.

He went home, found the cat waiting behind the door as he opened it. He looked down at it. “I'm not thanking you.”

The cat mewed at him, following him into the kitchen. He made himself a cup of tea, dunking the bag in and out of the water, cat still at his feet.

“It was dumb luck,” he told it. “You're no Miller.”

The cat flopped over and stuck its belly up in the air, starting to purr.

"I'm not calling you Detective Sergeant, either," he said, knowing full well what his daughter had named the thing as a joke. "You don't have instincts. You're a bloody cat."

* * *

The next day, he told the cat about his new case.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I have no idea if there are free adoption days where Hardy is, but that's how I ended up with my newest cat, a free day.
> 
> And his name was, in fact, Angus, when I adopted him. I'm the one who couldn't pronounce it right, and I didn't think he looked/acted like an Angus (and I couldn't help thinking of the book series my sister read that started with _Angus, Thongs, and Full-frontal Snogging._ ) So I changed my cat's name.
> 
> The cat personality chart is something a bit like [](http://charlottenc.gov/AnimalsCMPD/adoption/PublishingImages/felineality/feline%20chart%20poster.jpg)this though the one at the shelter I visited had a specific personality my mother and I laughed about, the "investigator/explorer." Turns out, though, that's exactly what I got.
> 
> My cat did do the spooking thing where he didn't realize his own tail was attached. He also follows me about and settles wherever I am as well as sticks his nose in everything and everywhere. He's my orange poofball, and I adore him.
> 
> I think he'd drive Hardy bonkers, though.


End file.
